Women’s Voice and Leadership – Ukraine

Implementation period:

2019 – 2024

Regions:

All regions of Ukraine

Target audience:

This project is supporting up to 190 women’s rights organizations (WROs), representing a broad spectrum of women and girls, including women affected and/or displaced by the conflict; women living with disabilities; women with diverse sexual orientation and gender identities; Roma women and women representing other national minorities; rural women, low-income and otherwise vulnerable women, including young and elderly women. As critical agents of change, this project will support the WROs’ activities, build their institutional capacity, and promote network and alliance-building.

About the project:

The ultimate result of the project is increased enjoyment of human rights by women and girls and the advancement of gender equality in Ukraine.

Project activities include the following:

• Engaging with existing and new WROs to support them to build their constituencies and to address both ongoing and emerging issues;
• Providing a combination of institutional capacity‑building assistance, grant funding (including multi-year grants, grants to newly-created organizations, travel grants, and rapid‑response grants);
• Offering leadership skills training and mentorship; implementing advocacy campaigns; ensuring experience-sharing and coordination among WROs in all regions of the country, with a special emphasis on areas affected by the conflict and those affected by the influx of internally displaced persons in Ukraine.
• Facilitating extensive mapping of existing WROs including various regional contexts, the issues they face, and problems faced by various groups of women (by theme and region) to identify key areas for intervention. Project responses will be tailored to these needs.

Project objectives:

• Improve management and sustainability of local women’s rights organizations in Ukraine, particularly those representing vulnerable and marginalized women and girls
• Enhance effectiveness of programming and advocacy by women’s rights organizations to advance gender equality in Ukraine
• Increase effectiveness of national and sub-national women’s platforms, networks and alliances to effect gender-sensitive policy changes and policy implementation in Ukraine

Principles and partnership

The Ukrainian Women’s Fund is implementing the project «Women’s Voice and Leadership – Ukraine» in cooperation with the International Renaissance Foundation, NGO «La Strada-Ukraine», and a network of partners in regions of Ukraine. In this way, we ensure communication with the women’s / feminist movement and coordination within the movement, responding to the needs of the movement in a flexible way.

Basic principles of project implementation:

Nothing for you without you

We strive to be in a constant dialogue. Our strategic priority – strengthening the movement – remains unchanged. Accents and tactical tasks are adapted according to the priorities set out by the participants of the women’s / feminist movement at the annual Feminist Organizational Development Forums.

Inclusiveness

We strive to support the diversity of the women’s / feminist movement, so we make every effort to take into account the interests of different categories of women and girls, including internally displaced people, women with disabilities, Roma women and women from other national minorities, women with different sexual orientations and gender identities, or discriminated women, young and elderly women.